Is Hypnosis Real?

Yes, it is 🙂 There are many clinical studies that prove it, and if you know anyone who has tried it, they can confirm it as well (providing they were willing to participate in the process).

It is hard to distinguish real from fake when it comes to hypnosis, especially if you haven’t had any experience with it yourself, and even more so if you’ve been watching the stage hypnotists making people behave crazy. But hypnosis and hypnotherapy are being used in psychotherapy, by licensed physicians, psychologists, and others, and bear little resemblance to what has been promoted in the media as a way to manipulate or completely control another human being.

Difference Between Stage Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy

What you can see on TV and in live “hypnosis” shows is in most cases faked – the participants are usually the helpers of the hypnotists. In some cases however, the experienced hypnotist has previously screened the audience to find the best candidate for his act.

You see, we all are susceptible to hypnosis, but the degrees in which we’re “hypnotisable” vary greatly. Most of the population, probably you and me, is in some middle zone; some, about 10-15%, are very difficult to hypnotize (mostly due to some mental disorder, like inability to concentrate, or those who are too afraid to lose control and are therefore not willing to participate). But some 7% of the population is “highly hypnotisable” – they have the right processing style to experience the deep hypnotic trance that, well, will make the show go on 😉

Real hypnosis has no clear definition, as it is very personal for different people, but can be described as a natural state of deeper focus and attention. It is more like having a conversation which is planned, and coordinated towards your subconscious mind than anything mysterious or overpowering.

It is estimated that most people go through a form of this a few times each day, which can be misinterpreted as daydreaming or being extremely focused on one particular object (when reading a book for instance). It is also a common misconception that hypnosis requires sleeping – it is simply a state of deep relaxation and focus.

Can Hypnosis Help Me?

If you want it to help you, then there’s a good chance that it will. One of the main elements required for a successful hypnotherapy is that a person is willing to relax and to accept the suggestions given by the hypnotherapist. Since you’re already reading about it, then you probably believe that it can help you, which means that you’ve already done the first step. Hypnosis tends not to work for those who are adamant, as it takes a degree of self control to allow yourself to enter a hypnotic state.

Hypnosis is able to influence your mind, but not fully control it. That’s why you can only be “hypnotized” to do the things you already want to do, but are unable to for some reason that lies somewhere in your unconscious. Hypnosis works by bypassing the conscious part of our mind, and speaking directly to the unconscious. In that process, our unconscious is being updated with new, more helpful information that go along with what we consciously want to change.

A good example of what real life hypnosis can do for you is pain control. We have explained how our subconscious controls our autonomic bodily functions when we were talking about subliminal messages (the effects of subliminal messaging and hypnosis are in many ways similar). As hypnosis affects our unconscious, it is also capable of influencing some physical changes – our mind does it all the time by itself, just think of a situation when you’ve discovered a bruise on your leg and you had no idea how or when you got it.

In situations like these, physical events occur, that’s a fact, but our unconscious has relegated them to million bits of sensory information that you’re not aware of. With hypnosis, you can achieve the same thing, only controlled, and you can apply the same principle to a specific situation – to control your headaches, for example.

These days hypnosis is much more understood, and targeted towards different personal problems and goals, there are many different branches of hypnosis now, from weight loss hypnosis to hypnosis for confidence, and even memory hypnosis programs are available.

However, it is so exciting that we are still only scratching the surface as to what is possible with hypnosis – watch this space as over the next 10 years the power of hypnosis is set to explode.